Comments on: Ask crowdSPRING: Can Creative Commons Licensed Works Be Used For Logo Design?

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:41:23 +0000

Your point is well taken and I believe we are actually arguing the same point. It would be difficult for two companies to use the same logo (or substantially similar logos) in the same market but it would not be impossible for a company, for example, that does work in the oil drilling market and another company in the teddy bear market to have the same logo (or ssl) – it is a question of whether consumers would be confused by the use. And it would be possible for someone to take an image or a design and alter that image or design in a way to make it distinctive from another logo that incorporates a similar design or alteration. As long as it is not confusingly similar.

I think there are other reasons why companies like iStockphoto don’t want their materials in logos – inadequate compensation and length of use. Use of iStock materials in a logo could endure for years whereas standalone use is probably more transitory.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:41:00 +0000

By: Ross

Ross — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:41:29 +0000

Justin – thanks for commenting. You are right that one can have a distinctive logo utilizing licensed fonts. (I’m writing an e-book covering the law related to fonts). The issue here isn’t fonts, however. Let me illustrate: suppose two different businesses, in the same industry category, used an identical font spelling an identical name. It’s reasonable to say that neither would be distinctive. If the same font was used, on the other hand, for different businesses using different names, then each could be distinctive even though they used a common font.

In the case of images (the context of this blog post), two companies that used a Creative Commons image would end up using an identical image for their logo. Of course, other things would also be relevant, such as colors, shape, etc. However, most companies that incorporate marks in their logos also desire to use the marks independent of the logotype. As a result, even if the combined mark was considered to be distinctive, this would be a serious limitation on such use. This limitation (and the general problem with an identical image used by many people being sufficiently distinct) is why stock sites don’t allow use of stock images in logos.

By: Ross

Ross — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:41:00 +0000

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:56:46 +0000

I disagree with your conclusions. It is possible to create a distinctive logo utilizing licensed inputs. It simply depends on how the licensed inputs are utilized. For example, it is common to claim a distinctive mark based on the type of font utilized – in that case their is an implicit license from Microsoft to use the font.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:56:00 +0000

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Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:31:36 +0000

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